New Years Day Food: Seared Tuna with Quinoa Salad & Raw 'Slaw

Fish, one of the most nutritionally efficient proteins on the planet and a rainbow salad. Dream food. Here's two things to do with tuna.

1.

2.

Burger Lounge, Little Italy, San Diego, CA. Kerri and I found ourselves hungover in there on New Years Day 2014. Your first meal of the year carries such significance - it's an opportunity to shape your year from the offset. Everyone is hungover on New Years Day. It's easy to go out and find a roast. It's easy to go out and find fast food places like McDonalds incessantly open and fine, some people love that and 'need' those carbs and that 'meat'. Don't settle for that! At Burger Lounge you find awesome grass-fed beef burgers but also options such as 'Seared albacore' in a bun (with baby watercress, roasted tomato relish, and house-made lemon-basil aoili) for about $9. At the time they had a quinoa superfood salad with your choice of added protein. This sort of shit is absolutely necessary hungover and the blessed seared albacore was on. So that was 2014 off to a delicious start!

Now the year is almost over - here's a recreation to inspire healthier eating in the new year and beyond. Again, play with it as you will, mix it up, add stuff you have but keep the principle the same - rare oily fish (tuna, salmon, trout) and fresh, varied salad items with a lemon and oil based dressing.
We're using tuna as it's more readily available than albacore over in the UK.

For the salad:

A couple of handfuls of quinoa - cooked
One pot of olives in oil and red pepper (from most supermarket)
One pot of tabbouleh(Bought from an arabic restaurant - they do the best) you can google it if you want to make it yourself, it's fairly simple.(Tomatoes, onions, mint, parsley, olive oil)
Any salad bits you want we used tomatoes, celery (really cleansing and very high fibre) cucumber (again cleansing), rocket (vitamin A, C, K), spring onions (onions contain sulphur which is great for collagen production)
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper

You don't need to add any oil as there will be plenty in the olive pot - but obviously you can add more if you want. Oil is fine! don't worry it! it's a good fat and is a key part of a Mediterranean diet which is noted to be the healthiest style of living on the planet.

Tabbouleh

The salad ready to be mixed

Rub some salt, pepper and olive/rapeseed oil into your tuna steak and throw onto a scorching griddle pan for about 30 seconds either side (less if you like it rare) depending on how thick it is et voila!

I did this version of it a few months back for The Boy. Keeping in with the American inspiration, it uses 'slaw (coleslaw to anyone who hasn't been to the states) as a base. This is raw rhubarb, though, so of course it's raw slaw with no mayo.

I used grated beetroot, carrot, chilli (yes attempted to grate a chilli), apple and added garden peas, rocket, avocado and baby tomatoes and olives to make the salad SING. This one, was an absolute winner. Dressed it in lime juice and olive oil only. The grated slaw has so much JUICE.